Action is Hope: a virtual panel discussion
MAY 27, 2022 | 7:00PM-8:30pm (ET)
Free & Open to All
Local leaders who have changed their community through activism in different ways speak about their process and what called them to activism. Action is Hope: a virtual panel discussion is a call to action and a sharing of ideas to move us all toward action within our communities.
THE PANELISTS Include:
JAIIE Dayo-Aliya
Playwright, Actor, Director, Poet, Singer, Songwriter
Jaiie Dayo-Aliya is a playwright, actor, director, poet, singer, and songwriter from Akron, OH. He is the Co-founder and Artistic Director of Ma’Sue Productions where he has written nine plays that have been produced by the 2017 Knight Arts Challenge. Dayo-Aliya is also the recipient of the 2020/2021 Nord Family Playwright Fellowship and is developing a new play Our Lady of Common Sorrows at Cleveland Public Theatre.
Michael Oatman
Playwright, Mentor, & Playwright/Script Analysis Instructor
Michael Oatman is the former Playwright-In-Residence at Karamu, the oldest producing African American theater in the country. He is only the second person to hold this honor in the storied history of Karamu the first being Langston Hughes. He currently serves as a playwriting mentor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He is also a playwriting/script analysis instructor at Kent State University. In 2011, he won the CPAC Workforce Fellowship and the Cleveland Art Prize in 2010 for Best Emerging Artist, and the 2010 Lantern Award for Best Play. In 2011, three of his full-length plays were produced: Breaking the Chains, You Got Nerve, and Sometimes Hope Is Enough. In 2010, seven of his plays were produced in various venues: Black Nativity (Adaption), War Paint, Eclipse: The War Between Pac and B.I.G., Course of Action, My Africa, A Solitary Voice, Not a Uterus in Sight, Hitler and Gandhi. He earned an English Degree from Cleveland State University in 2004 and completed his MFA in theater, from the Northeastern Ohio Master of Fine Arts Consortium (Cleveland State University, Akron University, Youngstown University, and Kent State University) in 2008.
“For me, the beauty of theater is that it lives. It is not an artifact. It wrestles with us and forces us to wrestle with it. Plays live in real-time; actors can reach out and touch you. Good drama is not a spectator sport. It’s a subtle give and take, a delicate dance between actor and audience, playwright and the world. I have often mused that “playwrights are the special forces of the creative writing world. They parachute in; give truth and watch as the walls tumble.”
Dianne McIntyre
Choreographer, Dancer, Director, and Dramatist
Dianne McIntyre is a choreographer, dancer, director, and dramatist in concert dance, theatre, film, and opera in a career spanning 50 years. She creates works from her experience as an African American and from her explorations through music, literature, history, poetry, and dynamics of the present world. For many years McIntyre directed her Harlem-based company, Sounds in Motion. She has toured internationally with her own dance-music ensembles and has choreographed for Dance Theatre of Harlem, Philadanco, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Dancing Wheels, GroundWorks Dance Theater, and countless university dance ensembles. Choreography for Broadway includes August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and King Hedley II; Off-Broadway Spell #7 and The Great MacDaddy; over 40 regional theatre productions including Crossroads Theatre, Karamu House, and Cleveland Play House. Screen choreography credits include Beloved and Miss Evers’ Boys (Emmy nomination). Other awards include: a Guggenheim Fellowship, Doris Duke Artist Award, United States Artists Fellowship, three Bessies (New York Dance and Performance), two AUDELCOs (NY Black Theatre), Helen Hayes Award (DC Theatre), Teer Pioneer Award (National Black Theatre), Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees from SUNY Purchase and Cleveland State University. Some music collaborations: Olu Dara, Hannibal Lokumbe, Cecil Taylor, Butch Morris, Amina Claudine Myers, Don Pullen, Max Roach, Lester Bowie, Sharon Freeman. In theatre and film, she has worked with Marion McClinton, Regina Taylor, Des McAnuff, Jonathan Demme, Douglas Turner Ward, Barlett Sher, August Wilson, OyamO, Ntozake Shange, Avery Brooks, Rita Dove, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Joe Sargent, Glenda Dickerson, Woodie King, Jr., Irene Lewis, Oz Scott, and Ricardo Khan.
McIntyre creates dance-driven dramas from real-life interviews – Open the Door, Virginia!, and I Could Stop on a Dime and Get Ten Cents Change. She is the choreographer of Intimate Apparel the opera by Lynn Nottage and Ricky Gordon for Lincoln Center Theater. Her mentors are Elaine Gibbs Redmond and Gus Solomons jr.
THE MODERATOR:
India Nicole Burton
Playwright, Actress, and director
India Nicole Burton is an actress, director, playwright, devisor, and producer. She is a native of Akron, OH, and graduated from The University of Akron in 2011 with a BA in Theatre Arts with an emphasis on performance. Upon graduating, India founded Ma’Sue Productions, an African American theatre company located in Akron. She has directed, produced, and performed in several of Ma’Sue’s plays and was co-artistic director until 2015. India recently ended a virtual national tour of American Dreams by Leila Buck in 2020, where she played the role of Briana Coffman. She originated this character when it had its world premiere at Cleveland Public Theatre in 2018. India’s directing credits include for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (Heads Up Productions), The Laramie Project (Heads Up Productions), Daybreak’s Children (Ma’Sue Productions), A Happening on Imperial (Ma’Sue Productions), Fire on the Water (Cleveland Public Theatre, co-directed); Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation (in development at Cleveland Public Theatre), “inside out” by Francisca Da Silveira (Company One, as part of their C1: Inauguration project), Welcome to the Taj Mahal (Motel) by Riti Sachdeva at The Playwrights Center (Workshop). India’s assistant directing credits include the 2014 production of The Color Purple at Karamu House, A brownsville song (b-side for tray) at Dobama Theatre, and Cleveland Public Theatre’s Barbecue and Good at Heart, featured in BorderLight International Theatre + Fringe Festival. India is a board member for New World Performance Lab, a two-year recipient of the NNPN Producer in Residence program for Cleveland Public Theatre, and a 2021 recipient of the NNPN Bridge Program grant. She was also a cast member of American Dreams, which was nominated for a Drama League Award in 2021. India is currently receiving her MFA in playwriting from The University of Nebraska’s Creative writing program.